Can you imagine the ideal start to your day? I can. Now, can you imagine the exact opposite of that? I can do that too. For me, the opposite of my ideal morning would be to have a three-hour foreign language class that started at 9:00 am…and that is exactly how Day 3 began. Surprisingly, for whatever reason, I really enjoyed the experience. There is no pressure when it comes to learning Chinese. I know that I am not going to be perfect at the language and I also know that I will not be tested on it. I even mastered a few sayings. Wo shi mei guo ren (I am from America). I also received my fair share of “standard” comments. After class we met Professor Akin (our UNC professor who is with us for the month of June) outside of the classroom and we all loaded into a bus to go to Sanlitun to meet our internship hosts. Visiting Sanlitun was an eye opening experience. Up until this point, everywhere that I had been in Beijing had seemed dirty and much closer to a third world country than a global power…Sanlitun was Western, advanced, clean and awesome. There were huge buildings everywhere with progressive glass architecture. They had a five-story Nike store, four and five star restaurants all around, and every major clothing brand you could imagine. Our destination was a nice restaurant named Blue Frog, where we were treated to a huge cheeseburger and a plate of fries. Jade was in New Zealand, so I was met at Blue Frog by Rich, the head of marketing for Lush, Pyro Pizza, and Gung Ho! Pizza. Rich was very friendly and personable. He had some Chinese heritage, long shoulder length hair, and tattoos all over his arms. Jim James, the internship coordinator, was present at the lunch as well and he gave a short presentation to all of the interns and their hosts about what the expectations would be for both sides. After the lunch ended, Rich invited all of us to come to Lush for a few drinks later that night (after street beers the night before we all eagerly agreed). Everyone took a little bit of time to shop around the Sanlitun area (no purchases…everything here was legit and expensive) before taking the subway back to the Global Village. When we arrived home it was about time for dinner so we decided to go ahead and go to Lush for dinner and drinks. My first impression of Lush was that it was a cozy bar and hang out. To get to the entrance you have to walk through a bookstore and up a flight of stairs. Once you enter, the space is pretty small, but it was packed full. At any given time there are about fifteen tables, a few bar stools, and a bit of standing room in Lush. I had called Rich right before we arrived and he met us at the door and led us through the crowd to a table. We all ordered various western food and Rich got us our first round of drinks. It was live music night and everyone enjoyed hanging out for about four or five hours. After the music ended Rich suggested we check out Propaganda (he called it a “right of passage”), a club that was two minutes away. By this point, it did not take a lot of convincing to get everyone to go to a dance club. I later found out a few things about Propaganda 1. It is known for having fake alcohol 2. Chinese gangs/mafia like to hang out there and 3. They love white people. As we walked in the door we were all given our own VIP black card that gave us all half off drinks and free admittance any night of the week. Everyone bought a drink and headed down into what could best be described as a basement/ dance floor/ dungeon/ Chinese mosh pit. Surprisingly, the DJ was playing regular American club music. After fighting our way downstairs our group pushed onto the main stage right in front of the DJ (we literally kicked everyone else off the stage) and danced there for what felt like hours…it was great. Nash had his Flip video camera and it is safe to assume that there are a number of ridiculous videos from that night. At some point I left Propaganda and went home to go to sleep…knowing all along that I had Chinese language class again the next morning at 9:00 am.
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